DOTD For Thursday, February 12, 2026
A Great Italian Drink For A Legendary Cookie
Today’s DOTD - Drink Of The Day - is a Venetian Cocktail inspired by the first National Biscotti Day this year. There is another one in September, apparently.
Biscotti are little Italian almond delights that originated in the city of Prato, in the province of Tuscany, Italy. Back when medieval Latin was the lingua franca there, they had the word biscotus, meaning twice-cooked. Baking something twice was useful then as the subject matter would become very dry, making it useful for long storage or carrying away to eat when at war. The word biscotto is the singular noun that survived into modern Italian and biscotti is the plural.
Of course, they have another word for them as well: cantucci. That’s the plural of cantuccio which means “little place” or “corner” but in the past was used to describe a little piece of bread with a lot of crust.
The original recipe uses only flour, sugar, eggs, pine nuts, and roasted almonds. No yeast, no butter, no oil, no milk. It was a barely wet dough that was cooked twice - once as a sort of slab, like a flat loaf of bread, and a second time after being sliced. That’s how they get dry and crispy. Naturally, there are all sorts of varieties out there now. Whether chocolate dipped, with other nuts like pistachio added, or spices like cinnamon or anise, it’s all out there now.
Due to Tuscany’s plethora of almond groves, the initial recipe of biscotti was tweaked to include unroasted almonds. Being dry, biscotti takes naturally to being dipped. In Italy that’s usually for dessert with a fortified dessert wine called vin santo. This wine is considered by Italians to be the only perfect match for biscotti. It’s also used as an ingredient in some Catalonian dishes, enjoyed in rice & sardines, and onion sauces. In one Spanish region, in santo is even used as an ingredient in the sauce prepared for turnip-stuffed duck.
While Italians may prefer to dip their biscotti in vin santo, elsewhere in Europe & the rest of the world, biscotti is far more commonly consumed with coffee, and in some places like the U.S., even hot chocolate.
Biscotti found its way to America thanks to Christopher Columbus, who had used it as food during his voyage. Like many things that made that voyage, biscotti didn’t remain the same in the ‘New World,’ as it was modified, and is now enjoyed in ways that we can appreciate today. For example, today we 3eat the cookie with tea, coffee, cold chai, or even use it in parfaits.
For Catholics & other Christians in Spain, biscotti is also associated with Palm Sunday, as ‘currutacos’ a type of biscotti with whole roasted almonds, are used as ornaments on the palm leaves given to the worshippers in the capital of the Spanish region, Garraf.
However you enjoy your biscotti, you should have a great drink to go along with it. And for us, that’s today’s Drink Of The Day, a Venetian Cocktail.
Ingredients
Here’s what you’re going to need for this drink:
